Category: David

Growing, apparently, from the same spot on the wall of a building on Ilfracombe Pier, a sow thistle emerges from one side of a drainpipe, and a wall pennywort (Umbilicus rupestris) from the other.

Snipe are often more reclusive than many other species of wader. A pair on the RSPB Bowling Green reserve were on the edge of the scrape directly under the hide, though only one was in plain sight. Meanwhile others were crouched behind clumps of sedge by the pools near the lane.

Bright red and glossy berries of a stinking iris (Iris foetidissima). Growing all along by the side of the path climbing from the end of the prom at Exmouth to the start of the Jurassic Way Coastal Path.

The same pair of black swans seen flying upstream over the Exe estuary in yesterday’s post. Now, a couple of hours later, they were on the water by the stone jetty at Topsham, feeding on the weed at the end of the jetty, and swimming gently up and down for the people sitting on benches eating their sandwiches.

Items of metalwork repeatedly submerged in the sea, covered in limpets and other small shellfish. All seen at different points around the harbour at Ilfracombe.

A small colony of black swans has been established along the south Devon coast for many years. here a pair were flying upstream over the Exe estuary.